Loyalty programs (also known as incentive or reward programs) are typically very popular in many types of businesses. For example, loyalty programs may be implemented to increase the use of a product by a current customer or to obtain additional customers. With regard to transaction cards, such as charge cards, loyalty programs may encourage a loyalty program participant to use a particular transaction card for making acquisitions. Typically, loyalty points accrue in a loyalty account and are earned from transactions that involve participant behavior that is encouraged by the loyalty program sponsor. These loyalty points may be redeemed for prizes, upgrades, and merchandise, thus rewarding the participant for the behavior. However, prior art loyalty point redemption processes lack “real-time” use by the participant. For instance, in a typical redemption process, a participant calls the loyalty system and requests to redeem a number of loyalty points in exchange for a certificate that can be used at a particular merchant (on-line or off-line). The participant is mailed a certificate (or provided with an online code) and then can redeem the certificate at that merchant.
This typical redemption process is time-consuming and may be annoying for the consumer, thus degrading the value of the loyalty reward. Furthermore, this redemption process is generally not practical for the acquisition of goods and services that are in high demand and/or that have short selling periods. For example, difficulties may be encountered when a participant desires to redeem loyalty points for tickets to a particular concert. By the time the participant requests a certificate, receives the requested certificate, and contacts the ticket agency to redeem the certificate, desired tickets to the particular concert may no longer be available. This participant may have only wanted to redeem the loyalty points for that one particular concert. Furthermore, in this example, the participant may now be left holding a certificate that is inappropriate for other ticket purchases. For example, the certificate value may not match the price of a later selected ticket, or the certificate may be restricted to a particular ticket agency. Furthermore, the participant risks misplacing the certificate before the next redemption opportunity.
Prior art systems may also offer the ability for members of loyalty programs to telephone the ticketing agency for a special offer (i.e. discount, or free gift) through the input of an offer code into the telephone system. The member may obtain a discount or gift with the ticket purchase when tickets are received in the mail. These “one-off” promotions are typically determined by the producers/owners of the actual event who are the ticketing agency's clients. However, efficient use of rewards points as a payment option through a ticketing agency or on an exchange does not exist. In general, the ability to efficiently acquire goods or services with loyalty points without pre-approval does not exist. Therefore, a system is needed to facilitate an expedited method for purchasing “available” tickets with loyalty points.